So, stupid question, this is more about how weak her opponents are than how great she is /any accomplishments by her party?

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In part. She is in fairness a decently strong politician for the most part and is definitely a stronger leader than Corbyn or Farron but similarly is out of touch enough to have worn rather unflattering yet absurdly expensive leather trousers in an interview (this is genuinely something that our media held against her and made a big deal out of).

That said she will win this primarily because of weak leadership from the other two major parties. As stated numerous times over Corbyn is largely incompetent - he still acts and tries to lead like a back bench politician and has virtually no actual charisma. Farron similarly has the charisma of a wet towel but seems to think remaining in the Single Market while leaving the EU is possible so is very probably totally incompetent.

Being put bluntly Corbyn is facing the problem of existing MPs stepping down from running because they are confident they will lose/do not agree with his vision for Labour. It's a pretty fucking bad situation.

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There's also the rumours that 30 or so Tory MPs face charges for electoral fraud by overspending past their allocated campaigning budget and the election's also on covering that up, which I am not at all surprised at because the tories make the serpent of eden look like a fucking angel.

In the long run of things that story is really quite minor. The headlines being used are intentionally inflammatory because bluntly the MPs themselves may not even be facing charges - the police force can't decide who to bring charges against and have had to submit to the CPS for them to actually make the decision.

I did some further digging and it only really seems to be the SNP who are pushing for anything, which is unsurprising because they want to demonise Westminster as much as possible to help push for another independence referendum.

Plus calling the general election really does nothing to stop this. If there are legitimate criminal concerns the CPS will push charges anyway and there is no way May can avoid that being a national story.

It used to be that the PM could effectively call an election on demand, with a maximum time between them of five years. The coalition introduced the fixed term Parliament act, making it a fixed five years between them unless a 2/3'S majority votes for it (as has now happened). They implemented that rule to stop either party of the coalition bringing down the government the moment they smelt a chance to come out ahead of their partners in an election. The PM is just whichever MP can persuade to commons to vote for their plan for government. Our electoral system is designed to produce majorities in the commons for a party on merely 35%+ of the popular vote, so this is nearly always just the leader of the largest party. The first Labour PM only lead the second largest party though (the Liberals chose to support him over the larger Tories) and Churchill famously wasn't leader of the Tories when made PM.

May has a very small majority, which means she needs the support of almost all of her own party to pass anything. A small group of Tory MPs (we're talking 10 out of a chamber of 650) can hold her hostage by threatening to side with the opposition. An increased Tory majority means she would have more freedom to ignore the more radical elements of her party which - given she was a Remainer who might well personally favour a softer Brexit than she publicly has to argue for to keep the more extreme elements of her party happy - is probably the best outcome we can hope for.

I'll almost certainly vote Lib Dem, because I think Brexit is an awful idea that can still be halted and my constituency it's between them and Labour who like... no, until they get a halfway competent leader and stop arguing for Brexit lite.

This election is pretty predictable tbh, with the only questions being a) how badly will Labour get trollied and b) will the SNP get enough support again to force May's hand into a second independence referendum. Electoral maths says Labour will probably only drop 30 or so seats, mostly to the Tories (Labour have a lot of very safe seats), the Lib Dems might claw their way back up a couple and the SNP will probably do the same as 2015 and use their success as a mandate for a referendum even though their success has more to do with the incompetence of all their opponents north of the border and than it does a real drive for me independence.

The Tories make it even more obvious how deluded about Brexit they are, Labour suggest they could fund 10,000 (or maybe 100,000!) new police for only Ł300,000 (or was it Ł80m?) in what has to be hands down the biggest train wreck of a political interview I have ever heard, and Clegg has a massive go at a reporter (admittedly Piers Morgan) for bringing up his enormous fuck up with tuition fees.

So I'm rather shifting my opinion and may well vote Labour. Corbyn is still not much of a leader but Labours manifesto is one I can by and large get behind and I feel like the country would be better off if some of the ideas in there end up more mainstream (which could feasibly happen, a number of Tory policies at this election are clearly either inspired by or ripped wholesale from the more popular bits of Labours 2015 manifesto - albeit that was kinda Tory lite anyway which is why I didn't vote for them last time). I don't agree with them on everything but it would be a move in the right direction, and my local Labour candidate is a former MEP who's made it clear she personally favours remaining in the EU if they can't get a good enough deal. Alleviates some of my Brexit fears with regards to Labour. Might still vote Lib Dem though, not decided yet.

The nightmare scenario remains the Tories ending with around 325 seats though. Ideally they'll fall well short (<300) or failing that have a healthy majority of 50+ so May can't be held hostage by a small group of her more extreme MPs.

Yeah it's a bit stupid. At the very least the DUP and SF probably deserve screen time because both have more seats than either the Greens or UKIP. The seven parties invited to debates aren't the seven largest by either seat count or votes at the last election: DUP got more votes than Plaid and both DUP and SF have more seats than Greens, Plaid or UKIP.

Tbh I feel like either SF and DUP need to be in the debates or we need to just exclude parties so aren't running in at least X% of constituencies. Particularly seeing as on the very off chance the Tories don't quite make a majority, the DUP are the only party who could and would conceivably prop them up

Exit polls always have ten or twenty seats wiggle room, so a Tory majority is still possible. Given the ridiculous lead the polls gave them less than two months ago though, anything less than a significantly increased majority surely spells the end for May as Tory leader. Johnson? Hammond? Maybe an outsider eurosceptic like Davies? We shall see.

Tories are currently sitting at an net 9 seat loss, which if it holds means they would need to form a coalition with probably DUP to actually remain in power. Will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out (we do still have another 234 seats to go and plenty left for the SNP to bleed over to the Tories but we can always hope).

I will point out that NI can actually really use this money, particularly for our infrastructure and health services (take a look at any transport map of NI and you'll see what I mean), but there'll need to be a lot of oversight here.

In terms of representing their constituency and getting the best deal possible the DUP played an absolute blinder.

Josh is also very correct that NI could use the investment. The problem for the Tories and for the way this move will be viewed is that other areas in the country sorely need that kind of investment too. The "Northern Powerhouse" initiative has achieved absolutely fuck all over the span of 3 years and as of a few days ago, 3 ministers. It's a fucking shitshow of biblical proportions.

NI needs the investment to an extent, but let's be honest they already get far more funding per head than any other part of the UK before this deal. In some ways this is kinda fair - parts of England that get funding at about Ł11k per person as opposed to NI's Ł14.5k per person have a somewhat better infrastructure to start with so don't need it quite as much - but it's hard not to look at the some parts of the Labour manifesto that this money would've comfortably funded that May broke out the "magic money tree" quip on and not feel robbed blind.

Not to mention you have to wonder where this money is going to come from. The Tories underfunded crucial shit badly enough as is, and we know damn well this won't come from increased taxes anywhere - it'll come from further cuts. More police or NHS cuts? Welfare budget?

On top of that, there's a deadline for agreeing a new government at Stormont between the DUP and SF tomorrow afternoon at 4pm. If talks fail - and it looks like they will - there's a good chance we return to home rule with the UK government being a supposedly neutral arbiter. How can a government that depends on one of the two parties for its continued survival hope to be a neutral arbiter in that? Serious risks to the Good Friday agreement right here.

So while mostly figureheads, these are REAL numbers here, and very REAL wallets will be hit by this. Could you imagine the American public paying for one of Trump's kids getting married?

So, what do ya'll think? I'm personally a fan-boy for democracy, and so I am 100% for the formal transformation to a republic- not to be insensitive to folks who love tradition and having the royals around. It makes you wonder what kind of use that money could be used for as far as making the island a better place.